Playing God
By GoldenEagle
Chapter One: Playing Fate
Blood poured out, the ancient marble walls and floors and columns stained with the crimson flood. A battle of great proportions had taken place here, not long ago. The hallways were still warm, there could even be heard the slightest movement as soldiers of both armies moved, in desperate search of someone to be with them as they died, whether friend or adversary. Yet all that was left was the remains, the people dead and dying, and their country, their army, had abandoned them, to die, as everyone must in the end.
Yet, among those who reached out for some sort of comfort in their last moments, lay one silent figure, blood poring from a deep gash in the soldier's stomach. Dillandau Albatou, the greatest warrior in all the Zaibach army, lay, torn and dying, on the stones of an alter to some god of forgotten past. After being forced out of his Guymelef, the boy, for truly he was only but of fifteen years of age, had been forced into the real, actual battle. It was not a rare occurrence, but this time he had been struck down. As he stared up at the darkening, smoke filled sky, he smiled slightly, feeling his body give way to the death that pushed upon him.
The battle he had just fallen at was set in the rubbles of an ancient city, a race having once dwelled there. The Druids, as they were called, the ones that worshipped nature and believed, at times in the earth's cycle, that the gateway to different worlds thinned. That, if you had the right elements in place, you could push through this veil and enter into other worlds. Dillandau found the religion foolish, nothing to be pondered on long. Yet here he lay, his blood seeping onto an ancient altar. His blood was not the only human blood that the place of sacrifice had drank in all its years of existence.
Unlike the other's around him dying, Dillandau was calm. He did not fear death, he did not feel a bond to life. He would regret nothing of his life, since there was nothing he held dear to him. He smiled up grimly as the mystic moon and her companion hung overhead, shining down on his blood, making it look thick and slick like paint. And, although he held no regrets, the tiniest recess of his soul spoke out, a strange wish issuing from his being.
'A part of me wished I had a second chance... A part of me wished there was something in this life I had cared for...'
The sacred altar with which he lay upon devoured his blood, then drank in his wish, considering it as all powers, all fates do. And, as if deeming this sacrifice of human blood worthy, the spiritual world which surrounded it glowed to life. Dillandau Albatou felt the power building around him, but for what reason, he had no idea. A white beam of light surrounded him and he wondered, momentarily, if this was what it was to die. He would have completely believed the hypothesis if it weren't for the stabbing pain that came with the slightest shift of his body as this energy, this power, lifted him up. He let out a trembling gasp as he felt the light consume him, and then he felt as if he were falling, falling, falling until he hit a hard, stone cold surface.
***********
The ER of the small, north Californian hospital was alive and busy, nurses rushing about as more and more people were pulled in. It was two nights before Halloween night, a night that was used to seeing that the hospitals would receive quite a few patients. But tonight was much different. Two days before, a massive earthquake had hit different portions of the Californian coast. People were still being pulled out of fallen buildings, and St. Mary's Hospital, though small it was, had received an overflow of patients which the larger hospitals had not been able to support. So it could almost go unsaid that not many would be out trick or treating that upcoming Halloween.
"What have we got now, Jim?" Katricia asked as he wheeled in another patient. She glanced down at the boy and her brow furrowed at the odd paleness of his appearance.
"Looks like some cult activity. Unidentified male, between the age of fourteen and sixteen, found on the West Heights. Some sort of Satanic or Druid markings found around the scene. Deep puncture wound which spreads across his entire abdomen. He's lost a lot of blood." The other man replied professionally, telling of the situation.
"What is up with the armor?" The woman asked as they pushed the stretcher further in. All the rooms in the Emergency Room were filled, and so they had people lined in the hallways.
The other man the nurse had been talking to smiled up wryly at her. "You should have seen the sword..."
"The what?!"
The man shrugged at the woman's doubtful outburst. "It's beyond me. Most likely he's some Satanist, having a little fun or something according to some drawn out Halloween deal. Maybe his buds ganged up on him. I have no idea. All I know is he needs to be treated quickly."
No other nurses had come to the two people taking care of the boy, but that was to be expected. Katricia, for that was her name, as mentioned above, prepared an IV for the teen in silence, but it was her companion, Jim as he has been called, that broke the silence. "A lot of freaky shit happening here, Kat. Especially in the big cities. We have riots, aftershocks, prison breaks..."
Kat shuttered as she continued caring for her patient. "You've heard of her-"
"What? 'Iliad's Siren'? Everyone has, Kat." The man answered grimly.
"I just don't understand how a kid could become a serial killer-"
"This is not the place to talk about this right now." Jim growled. "There are enough grim topics on the list at the moment, we don't need more talk about some crazed psychopath, okay? You don't speak of death in a place where everyone is trying to fight it..." Katricia shut her mouth tightly and continued on with her work, pushing away all thoughts of the girl that made front page for the last two days with tales of murder and blood.
**********
A pair of grey eyes flickered open, but the only sight the figure took in was that of the white and bland ceiling above. Pain and weariness seemed to cascade through the boy's body, and e wondered with a dull metal inquisition where he was. Dillandau, for that is who it obviously was, reached his heavy hands up, feeling his body in all the places where pain seemed to recede. His hands crossed his abdomen and he flinched momentarily as his fingers traveled delicately over the stitches.
Then one of his hands reached to the opposite wrist, and he frowned and gritted his teeth as he pulled the tube from his arm, the IV causing a slight pain. He sat up, unnoticed by the still rushing nurses and doctors busy about him, taking care of more wounded victims of the earlier earthquake. Though he did not know it, the sun was rising slowly yet steadily across the scene outside these walls.
Dillandau Albatou was wide eyed as he watched all the noise and chaos around him. He slipped out of his hospital bed quietly, no one taking notice as he moved forward, weakly, in the direction that he felt led to an exit. His instinct was true. He reached the front doors within minutes and, among all the turmoil around him, slipped outside, barefoot, into the awakening day. He remained in most of his armor, except for that down his arms, but his sword was gone. He scowled at this discovery. The nurses and paramedics had been much too busy to undress the boy and redress him in the usual hospital gowns. If he would have known the ways of this strange place, he would have been thankful for that fact.
Strangely, the oddly dressed boy, with pale skin and silver hair, went unnoticed by the world around him. People were still panicked from the earthquake, searching for lost family members and bodies among the wreckage. And, unknown to the lost soldier, an aftershock had hit that early morning, leaving even more chaos in its wake.
After what could have been an hour of walking, Dillandau found himself on an almost empty road, reaching the city limits. Houses were scattered far apart, and he was surrounded by green grass and wire fences. He sighed, exhausted. "Where the hell am I?" He muttered up to the sky, as if it would answer him. Finally giving up, he walked off the side of the road and propped himself up against the trunk of a tree. 'I'll just... rest... a while...' He thought slowly before his eyelids drooped and he fell asleep among green grass, flowers, and a view of the torn and burning city below.
By GoldenEagle
Chapter One: Playing Fate
Blood poured out, the ancient marble walls and floors and columns stained with the crimson flood. A battle of great proportions had taken place here, not long ago. The hallways were still warm, there could even be heard the slightest movement as soldiers of both armies moved, in desperate search of someone to be with them as they died, whether friend or adversary. Yet all that was left was the remains, the people dead and dying, and their country, their army, had abandoned them, to die, as everyone must in the end.
Yet, among those who reached out for some sort of comfort in their last moments, lay one silent figure, blood poring from a deep gash in the soldier's stomach. Dillandau Albatou, the greatest warrior in all the Zaibach army, lay, torn and dying, on the stones of an alter to some god of forgotten past. After being forced out of his Guymelef, the boy, for truly he was only but of fifteen years of age, had been forced into the real, actual battle. It was not a rare occurrence, but this time he had been struck down. As he stared up at the darkening, smoke filled sky, he smiled slightly, feeling his body give way to the death that pushed upon him.
The battle he had just fallen at was set in the rubbles of an ancient city, a race having once dwelled there. The Druids, as they were called, the ones that worshipped nature and believed, at times in the earth's cycle, that the gateway to different worlds thinned. That, if you had the right elements in place, you could push through this veil and enter into other worlds. Dillandau found the religion foolish, nothing to be pondered on long. Yet here he lay, his blood seeping onto an ancient altar. His blood was not the only human blood that the place of sacrifice had drank in all its years of existence.
Unlike the other's around him dying, Dillandau was calm. He did not fear death, he did not feel a bond to life. He would regret nothing of his life, since there was nothing he held dear to him. He smiled up grimly as the mystic moon and her companion hung overhead, shining down on his blood, making it look thick and slick like paint. And, although he held no regrets, the tiniest recess of his soul spoke out, a strange wish issuing from his being.
'A part of me wished I had a second chance... A part of me wished there was something in this life I had cared for...'
The sacred altar with which he lay upon devoured his blood, then drank in his wish, considering it as all powers, all fates do. And, as if deeming this sacrifice of human blood worthy, the spiritual world which surrounded it glowed to life. Dillandau Albatou felt the power building around him, but for what reason, he had no idea. A white beam of light surrounded him and he wondered, momentarily, if this was what it was to die. He would have completely believed the hypothesis if it weren't for the stabbing pain that came with the slightest shift of his body as this energy, this power, lifted him up. He let out a trembling gasp as he felt the light consume him, and then he felt as if he were falling, falling, falling until he hit a hard, stone cold surface.
***********
The ER of the small, north Californian hospital was alive and busy, nurses rushing about as more and more people were pulled in. It was two nights before Halloween night, a night that was used to seeing that the hospitals would receive quite a few patients. But tonight was much different. Two days before, a massive earthquake had hit different portions of the Californian coast. People were still being pulled out of fallen buildings, and St. Mary's Hospital, though small it was, had received an overflow of patients which the larger hospitals had not been able to support. So it could almost go unsaid that not many would be out trick or treating that upcoming Halloween.
"What have we got now, Jim?" Katricia asked as he wheeled in another patient. She glanced down at the boy and her brow furrowed at the odd paleness of his appearance.
"Looks like some cult activity. Unidentified male, between the age of fourteen and sixteen, found on the West Heights. Some sort of Satanic or Druid markings found around the scene. Deep puncture wound which spreads across his entire abdomen. He's lost a lot of blood." The other man replied professionally, telling of the situation.
"What is up with the armor?" The woman asked as they pushed the stretcher further in. All the rooms in the Emergency Room were filled, and so they had people lined in the hallways.
The other man the nurse had been talking to smiled up wryly at her. "You should have seen the sword..."
"The what?!"
The man shrugged at the woman's doubtful outburst. "It's beyond me. Most likely he's some Satanist, having a little fun or something according to some drawn out Halloween deal. Maybe his buds ganged up on him. I have no idea. All I know is he needs to be treated quickly."
No other nurses had come to the two people taking care of the boy, but that was to be expected. Katricia, for that was her name, as mentioned above, prepared an IV for the teen in silence, but it was her companion, Jim as he has been called, that broke the silence. "A lot of freaky shit happening here, Kat. Especially in the big cities. We have riots, aftershocks, prison breaks..."
Kat shuttered as she continued caring for her patient. "You've heard of her-"
"What? 'Iliad's Siren'? Everyone has, Kat." The man answered grimly.
"I just don't understand how a kid could become a serial killer-"
"This is not the place to talk about this right now." Jim growled. "There are enough grim topics on the list at the moment, we don't need more talk about some crazed psychopath, okay? You don't speak of death in a place where everyone is trying to fight it..." Katricia shut her mouth tightly and continued on with her work, pushing away all thoughts of the girl that made front page for the last two days with tales of murder and blood.
**********
A pair of grey eyes flickered open, but the only sight the figure took in was that of the white and bland ceiling above. Pain and weariness seemed to cascade through the boy's body, and e wondered with a dull metal inquisition where he was. Dillandau, for that is who it obviously was, reached his heavy hands up, feeling his body in all the places where pain seemed to recede. His hands crossed his abdomen and he flinched momentarily as his fingers traveled delicately over the stitches.
Then one of his hands reached to the opposite wrist, and he frowned and gritted his teeth as he pulled the tube from his arm, the IV causing a slight pain. He sat up, unnoticed by the still rushing nurses and doctors busy about him, taking care of more wounded victims of the earlier earthquake. Though he did not know it, the sun was rising slowly yet steadily across the scene outside these walls.
Dillandau Albatou was wide eyed as he watched all the noise and chaos around him. He slipped out of his hospital bed quietly, no one taking notice as he moved forward, weakly, in the direction that he felt led to an exit. His instinct was true. He reached the front doors within minutes and, among all the turmoil around him, slipped outside, barefoot, into the awakening day. He remained in most of his armor, except for that down his arms, but his sword was gone. He scowled at this discovery. The nurses and paramedics had been much too busy to undress the boy and redress him in the usual hospital gowns. If he would have known the ways of this strange place, he would have been thankful for that fact.
Strangely, the oddly dressed boy, with pale skin and silver hair, went unnoticed by the world around him. People were still panicked from the earthquake, searching for lost family members and bodies among the wreckage. And, unknown to the lost soldier, an aftershock had hit that early morning, leaving even more chaos in its wake.
After what could have been an hour of walking, Dillandau found himself on an almost empty road, reaching the city limits. Houses were scattered far apart, and he was surrounded by green grass and wire fences. He sighed, exhausted. "Where the hell am I?" He muttered up to the sky, as if it would answer him. Finally giving up, he walked off the side of the road and propped himself up against the trunk of a tree. 'I'll just... rest... a while...' He thought slowly before his eyelids drooped and he fell asleep among green grass, flowers, and a view of the torn and burning city below.
